Katie Day, originally from Maine (USA), has lived overseas since 1986 - in the UK, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Thailand, and Singapore.

In Singapore at the United World College of South East Asia, she worked in various roles, starting as their PYP Teacher-Librarian for two years at the Dover campus, serving 1,000 students, and then for three years at the temporary site of the new (East) campus in Ang Mo Kio, beginning with just 400 primary school students. When the permanent East campus opened in Tampines in 2011, she became the Head of Libraries and Secondary School Teacher-Librarian, eventually serving 1,500 students in middle and high school.

In 2017 she moved to Bangkok to join NIST International School as their Secondary School Teacher-Librarian, with 800 students in middle and high school.

EDUCATION

Her educational background includes: a Bachelor of Arts degree in Russian Civilization from Smith College (USA), a Masters of Children’s Literature from the University of Surrey - Roehampton (UK), a Masters of Information & Library Science and a Graduate Diploma of Secondary Education from Charles Sturt University (Australia).

PROFESSIONAL NETWORKS

In Singapore Katie was on the executive committee of ISLN (International School Librarians in Singapore) for years, holding various positions, including President. She also managed their blog and website. Together with Barb Reid, she was instrumental in the establishment of their annual Red Dot Book Awards and Readers Cup competition.

Hands on Literacy one-day conferences in Singapore: Katie Day (while at UWCSEA) and Barb Reid (while at Tanglin Trust) were the driving forces behind establishing the ISLN “Hands on Literacy” conferences — held in 2008, 2010, and 2012.

Librarians Knowledge Sharing Workshop (LKSW) conferences: Started by Barb Reid in 2012 when she moved to Malaysia after Singapore, these two-events are held at different international schools each year (e.g., Kuala Lumpur, Brunei, Bangkok, Singapore, and Ho Chi Minh City). Katie and Barb Reid organized and ran the February 2017 LKSW at UWCSEA East in Singapore.

EARCOS (East Asia Consortium of Overseas Schools) - Librarian-focused conference offerings: Katie was one of the librarian leaders invited to prepare workshops for the EARCOS Teachers’ Conference held in Bangkok in March 2018. She is also now on the organizing committee of the March 2019 EARCOS Librarians’ Weekend to be held at the Taipei American School.

LEADERSHIP - BOOK AWARDS

The Red Dot Book Awards in Singapore were the brainchild of Katie Day and Barb Reid, inspired by other teacher-librarian networks in Asia. The story of how they came to be can be found in this blog post.

The Bangkok Book Awards, started by BLISS (Bangkok Librarians in International Schools), was modeled on the Singapore Red Dot Book Awards (and other similar awards). Katie now serves on the committee that reads and chooses the shortlists.

The Neev Book Awards are a new initiative by Neev Academy in Bangalore, India. Katie was asked to be one of the nine jury members for their inaugural year, 2018.